Earth Day 2018 Was About Plastics Pollution—But Greens Missed Target

April 22 was designated by the Earth Day Network as Earth Day 2018. This year’s Earth Day was dedicated to ending global plastic pollution. While efforts to reduce plastic pollution are needed, the campaign missed the mark by emphasizing measures to eliminate the use of plastics.

Earth Day Network’s “Plastic Pollution Primer and Action Toolkit” identifies important problems such as litter and accumulating plastic in the ocean. It proposes effective measures to reduce plastic pollution such as local beach clean-up and recycling. But then the primer goes overboard, promoting radical proposals such as “whenever possible, refuse plastic” and “living a plastic-free life.”

Plastics are essential to modern society. We fabricate food containers, boat paddles, shoes, pipes, toys, smart phones, and thousands of other goods from plastic. Plastic is integral to medical services, used in heart valves, artificial joints, and catheters. Every day, society consumes approximately 450 million plastic bottles and 2.7 billion plastic bags worldwide.

From an objective point of view, plastics are a miracle material. Plastics are composed of long synthetic molecules of carbon and hydrogen, derived from petrochemicals, with amazing chemical properties. Plastics are moldable, impervious to water, inert in normal room-temperature conditions, light weight and strong, able to deform without breaking, and inexpensive.

But the valuable characteristics of plastic, a low-cost non-reactive material with wide applicability, produce both misguided and justified fears about environmental impacts. The Earth Day campaign raised concerns about the volume of plastics going to landfills, about fossil fuel feedstock for plastic, and about “leakage” of plastic into the environment. The landfill and fossil fuel concerns are misguided, but the concern about plastic accumulation in the environment is valid.

Environmentalists decry landfill plastic, but modern landfills are designed to accept waste with a minimum of environmental impact. Landfills in developed nations use a waterproof lining to prevent leaching of chemicals into underground water aquifers. Plastic and other garbage is crushed each day and covered with soil to reduce smell and litter and to prevent the growth of vermin and insect populations.

Nor are we running out of landfill space, except in local situations or in small nations. It has been estimated that, at current throwaway rates, all US municipal waste for the next 1,000 years could fit in a landfill 300 feet tall and 30 miles on a side. Compaction could reduce this volume by more than half.

In addition, the waste recovered by recycling, composting, and combustion is rising faster than waste is being generated. According to data from the Environmental Protection Agency, the amount of US waste annually deposited into landfills peaked in 1990 and has been slowly declining for more than 20 years. Plastic going into landfills is a minor issue.

Most plastic comes from oil or natural gas refining, therefore a target in the ongoing war on hydrocarbons. The Earth Policy Institute states, “Manufacturing of the nearly 28 billion plastic bottles used each year to package water in the United States alone requires the equivalent of 17 million barrels of oil.”

This sounds alarming, but it’s mistaken. Plastic is a by-product of refining waste. Only about four percent of the world’s oil is used to produce plastic, with only about one percent used for bottles. If plastic bottle production were halted, the volume of petroleum used in refining would hardly change.

A valid concern, however, is the accumulation of plastic in the environment, particularly the oceans. Dr. Jenna Jambeck at the University of Georgia estimated that 4.8 to 12.7 million tons of plastic waste entered the world’s oceans in 2010, or about 1.7 to 4.6 percent of total plastic production. These waste numbers are rising with increasing production.

Some scientists warn of a growing Pacific Ocean garbage patch, a huge area of ocean current whirlpool north of Hawaii, where plastic is said to be accumulating. Contrary to some reports, an observer gazing at this ocean area does not see floating plastic waste. But scientists do measure a growing concentration of tiny plastic particles. Sea birds, which mistake plastic for food, have been found with plastic fragments in their stomachs.

The environmental movement proposes that we cleanse our daily lives of plastic, and well-meaning nations and communities have responded. France enacted a ban on all plastic dishware to go into effect in 2020. Hundreds of cities have banned plastic straws and plastic bags.

But banning plastic straws in Seattle or Fort Myers will not do much to solve the problem. Only about two percent of the plastic that ends up in the ocean originates in Europe and the US, where waste disposal is well-controlled. An estimated 82 percent originates in Asia and another 16 percent from the rest of the world.

Ultimately, the best solution may be plastics engineered to biodegrade in the environment over a short period of time. Many companies now offer biodegradable plastics for single-use applications, usually at a cost premium over common plastics. Unfortunately, green groups often oppose biodegradable plastics over fears of methane or carbon dioxide emissions.

If everyone would clean up after themselves, become more efficient, compost, recycle, etc., my guess is we could cut the environmental impact of everything by a third. My wife and I take a 32 gallon bag of trash to the landfill every six weeks, other than that we compost and recycle everything, and even with a protracted and cold winter we will use less than 700 gallons of propane to heat, heat water, and cook over the last year. It’s not that difficult a thing to do, it saves us a few bucks, and none of it requires over-bearing government.

On the scale of things, it’s kind of pointless when we Climate Pope Gore living in a 10,000 sf mansion that has an annual electricity usage of 10 average homes in America. Throw in his world-wide jet-setting lifestyle (to climate conferences no less) and 2 vacation homes and his climate virtue is simply vacuous words for the little people (you and me) to follow.

Unfortunately, even if all of the world picked up after itself most of them still wouldn’t have any place to put their trash. They are left to make ad hoc dumps with no control environmental or otherwise, where the waste rarely remains for long before the environment strews it about.

“Only about two percent of the plastic that ends up in the ocean originates in Europe and the US, where waste disposal is well-controlled. An estimated 82 percent originates in Asia and another 16 percent from the rest of the world.”

See, it matters not a bit if every slob in the USA and the UK became a perfect neatnick overnight – it is the ingrained habits of billions of uber-slobs that DOES matter, and until those countries decide to enact waste management, their 98 percent share of pollution will only increase…

“Dr. Jenna Jambeck at the University of Georgia estimated that 4.8 to 12.7 million tons of plastic waste entered the world’s oceans in 2010, or about 1.7 to 4.6 percent of total plastic production. These waste numbers are rising with increasing production.

Some scientists warn of a growing Pacific Ocean garbage patch, a huge area of ocean current whirlpool north of Hawaii, where plastic is said to be accumulating.”

Just more alarmism without validity.

Searches have been conducted looking for the plastic gyro; and have failed to locate it.

Plastic degrade into particles, little different than weathered rock. Making little difference to plants, animals or farming.

“…Plastic degrade into particles, little different than weathered rock. Making little difference to plants, animals or farming…”

Actually, aside from the stories of wildlife getting caught in plastic rings and whatnot, degrading into particles is where there’s a problem. That’s where plastics enter the ecosystem (and such plastic can apparently be transported by wind to otherwise unpolluted locations). Plastics are much different physically and chemically than weathered rock.

I can’t speak for plants, but…

It does make a difference to animals. They wouldn’t normally ingest plastic otherwise but are subjected to it (and any toxins it has absorbed along the way) in drinking water and possibly in bioaccumulation when eating other animals.

It does make a difference in farming. Small plastic particles are not captured in conventional wastewater reclamation facilities, so they’re becoming prevalent in irrigation water and fertilizer.

And it is becoming more-and-more prevalent in the drinking water humans use. Now maybe it doesn’t have the potentially immediate and devastating effects of contaminants like lead or arsenic, but it is a concern.

Citation please, Michael Jankowski. As noted in the article above, plastics are almost entirely inert. Unless you are concerned about the physical accumulation of plastic granules in the gut, there’s no obvious way for the vast majority of plastics to bioaccumulate in any animal (or plant) system. (There are a few types of plastic with chemical structures similar to animal hormones – those few might cause problems. But the fix there is to change the plastic type, not to attempt to ban all plastics.)

That said, I will agree that there is one big difference between degrated plastic particles and weathered rock. Rock is heavier than water. Even finely ground silt will eventually settle out. Most plastics are much closer to the density of water. Thus, they can’t be easily separated from water with just settling tanks. Even if they are inert, I’d rather not have grit in my drinking water.

From the article, 82% of the waste originates in Asia. If individual “slobs” are responsible for most of the waste (as opposed to authorities dumping civic waste at sea or corporate entities) then the education needs to be concentrated there. Westerners making a hullabaloo in the Western mainstream media and enacting legislation in their own countries is not going to make a significant impact on the totality of the problem. However, it will reinforce the belief from environmentalists that they are “saving the planet”.

I have a wonderful bamboo cutting board and lots of bamboo utensils and really like using them. They are now making fabrics from bamboo. Bamboo flooring is very attractive. I have a small grove of GiantTimber Bamboo with some Green Bamboo mixed in; both of these are very useful and I have used them to replace rails in the fence. Livestock loves munching on the leaves too when they get the chance. These are tillering species and need to be kept in bounds, so one of our favorite tasks in spring is kicking over the shoots that are trying to colonize beyond their allotted place. The shoots are good to eat also….

The supply of bamboo flatware is available for purchase because it is more expensive than plastic, but because some folks prefer it, there is a profit to be made by supplying it.
Now increase the demand 10-fold, and see what happens.
Initially, the price will skyrocket.
Then growers will cut down more rain forest to plant more bamboo to meet the demand. It makes them money to do so.
The loss of that rain forest for bamboo production does not come without an environmental cost to the native rain forests of SE Asia.

They do not realize that there is no Trashberg or Garbage Patch of plastic in the Pacific. Trawls for plastic every two years have shown that the haul is going down asymptotically and longer trawls are needed to get a sample of plastic that can be analyzed. In addition, plastics on shore lines are appearing in smaller and smaller sizes, which means that they are indeed breaking down.

It should be pointed out that modern surgery could not be performed without plastics. Syringes would have to be glass and metal.

Do they also realize that clothing would be back to silk, cotton, wool, and hemp/burlap? All synthetics gone, no nylon hosers, sports attire, fancy sneakers, sports helmets, most car upholstery, living room furniture, and all but wooden and metal boats.

And, the tiny particles of plastic are not a hazard to sea birds as theory would pass right through them. It’s the larger pieces that are a hazard. So, the good news is that plastic does break down. In addition, bacteria and fungi know a good carbon source when they find one and eventually find a way to eat it. That’s how nature works.

The fear of bisphenol A is interesting because the EU, which is the pickiest about chemicals, has found that many organisms, including humans and mammals can metabolize bisphenol A. But, since the environmentalists use panic as their first goto reaction to most things, they assume it must be terribly bad.

Millions of women would revolt if synthetics were outlawed, demanding spandex be pardoned and production be continued. Underestimate the love of and dependence on control-top pantyhose/swimwear/underwear and stretch fabrics at your own peril.

Much of the worlds trash collection is non functional or haphazard. Banning plastic straws in a country which already process almost all of its municipal waste and sequesters it in landfills will not have any measurable effect across the world.
Virtue signaling in Europe won’t suddenly cause municipal waste collection in central America or Africa.

Burning wastes cleanly to produce electricity should be the top priority of ecology today. Why spend money to dump it when it can be a source of power? Surely it’s no more expensive to produce than renewables, and the supply of fuel is guaranteed to reflect the affluence of the region. The better the third world has it, the more waste they can burn to make cheap power.

Correct! Plastic is a great fuel – it’s just solid hydrocarbon – and can be burned efficiently and cleanly to produce lots of energy. Recycling it to produce inferior-quality material or burying it in a landfill doesn’t make any sense at all. Burn it properly and reap the benefit of a convenient high-energy fuel source!

Global warming as a reason to “leave oil/gas/coal in the ground” is starting to look a bit shaky. Time to move on to something else. For 2018 (and as long as it lasts) it’s plastics! And thereafter anything else they can fund that will allow the eco-actvists to lie about CO2.

WXcycles has spotted the obvious flaw. If your best estimate is 8.7+/-3.9 your research is bordering on the meaningless.

The ‘Greens’ here in the Puget Sound area are entirely dependent on plastics and synthetics to support their ‘kayaktivism’ against ‘big oil’. They drive to their protests in their ‘big oil’ manufactured and powered cars. They put on their oil-sourced synthetic wind and rain proof clothes, climb into their oil-sourced plastic kayaks, pick up their oil-sourced plastic paddles and head out to ‘protest’ any ‘big oil’ support ships that pull into harbor here. When confronted with his blatant hypocrisies, one of the outspoken paddle-pushers declared he didn’t give a damn about the hypocrisy because he was going to use plastics and any thing else needed to ‘end big oil’.

Spot on J Mac. Their responses also include “We don’t have a choice.” Well, they DO have a choice, but it requires hard work. Can’t do that AND hang out at Starbucks all day blogging about how virtuous you are.

Amazing, innit? The organizers of Earth Day have apparently decided that the Earth’s existence is no longer “threatened” by CO2. I guess they’ve seen the writing on the wall. Maybe they even sneak a peak at WUWT now and then. Progress! And if they go a bit overboard on the plastic bit, well, par for the course. Easily straightened out.

The tragedy is that using just a small proportion of the funds wasted due to climate change scaremongering would solve this problem. Facilities such as a modern landfill or a waste to energy incineration plant, plus education on waste minimization would largely fix this.

That, and for our young people to care enough to save that McDonalds trash (or even that stinky disposable diaper) for the rubbish container at the next petrol station or rest stop instead of just chucking it out the window of their automobiles. Trashing the place while signalling virtue is just a sign of hypocrisy.

A few months ago, I was stopped at a red light and saw the driver of a car ahead of me open his door and very deliberately place a plastic water bottle on the road. I was very tempted to put my car in park, go over, bang on his window, and chuck the bottle back in his car.

When I passed him after the light changed, I noticed that his appearance indicated an ancestral origin in a south Asian country that is not known for being great about waste disposal. For a second I wondered if perhaps he was foreign and/or his action was due to cultural indifference, but then I realized that either way, there is no way he did not know that was not appropriate. (If you are wealthy enough to fly halfway across the world, you are educated enough to know better.)

If you are going to visit or live in a developed country, act like a developed person and dispose of your trash properly! That goes for everyone! Heck, regardless of where you live or visit, dispose of your trash properly.

The point is not to solve the fake ‘problems’, the point is to make noise and demand spending on useless programs, designed to be ineffective, change nothing, so they can keep hyping the non-crisis, and keep weeping for more misallocated ‘investment’ in saving the planet.

A lot of this latest ant-plastic craze is purely political and caused by China banning imports of plastic waste products from Western countries, thus changing its standards. This is why the duffus British PM is now waffling about evil cotton buds and the national security implications of plastic shopping bags, run-amok, etc.

The loonie greenies sniff an opportunity here for public money, so are going all out to demonise plastic and insist on bans, which is yet more stupid over reach and absurd fear-campaigning in the public media usual suspects, to get something less, and to waste everyone’s time again via clagging up public debate with more fear BS and sciencey drivel.

Most of this data regarding plastics in the ocean is still just a computer model deducing shortfalls in recycled waste collected and presuming it ended up in oceans.

I presume some people like myself recycle stuff in the old fashioned way, using it in the form it came in without the need to grind it up, soak it in solvents, melt and reform the stuff .. as they make perfectly usable containers just as they are. I’ve even been known to cut up plastics and heated, vacuum form them into other shapes. Point being stuff sent out – stuff reclaimed = plastic in oceans is a bit of a dud formula

I have plastic buckets 20 years old. They are no more brittle than some of the 5 year old or newer buckets that I have aquired. Plastic is observably less durable these days. I wonder if the plastic substitutes for wood decking products will degrade as fast from UV, since they are recycled modern plastics.

The turbine blades are made of epoxy or polyester resin, reinforced with glassfibre. This is actually worse than plastic from an environmental point of view, since it cannot be melted or reformed. Also, curved shapes are hard to repurpose, whereas s/h flat glassfibre panels in good condition are resaleable items.

The issue here isn’t so much the glass filler as that epoxy is strictly speaking a thermoset resin, not a plastic.Unlike true plastics it cannot be melted once set. Burning it releases toxic fumes. It is thus one of the harder materials to dispose of responsibly, and you wonder about its use in green energy products.

This campaign has already had ludicrous results, such as persuading McDonalds to switch entirely from foam-plastic containers which could be recycled to cardboard which cannot (or at least it is not allowed in the US, probably due to overblown sanitary concern).

This illustrates the huge part the Greens have played in the now-much-broader problem that mob protests (and thus the puppet masters who pay to organize them) now have much more political clout than science.

Of course the “science community” also bears a lot of the blame since it has allowed those same puppet masters to get control of its own institutions. It will have to purge itself before it can begin to earn back the respect it has thrown away.

“to cardboard which cannot (or at least it is not allowed in the US, probably due to overblown sanitary concern).”

I have heard that oiled paper or cardboard should not be recycled as the oil creates problems in the recycling process. Specifically, pizza cartons should be discarded rather than recycled if they are stained with any oils. Hamburger, sausage, bacon, fried chicken or fish, etc., much of McD’s sandwich menu would qualify as spoilers of their cardboard packaging.

Even “non biodegradable” plastic degrades even in landfill and there are microbes that love the stuff in the sea. Yeah, don’t throw your garbage in the sea and recycling is a good idea. Apparently a lot of the plastic in the sea comes from small countries seaside city garbage dumps that during storms and flooding get eroded by rivers out to sea. It may even be a small countries way of recycling their limited landfill sites.

Also of note is that “non-biodegradable” plastic IS degraded by UV light. Set some Polyethylene plastic containers out on the patio in the sun, then go away a couple of years ( I got suddenly pulled to a contract on the other side of the continent). When you come back, that tough resilient thing will fracture into bits and dust when you try to pick it up. That is WHY the “Pacific garbage patch” is made of tiny dust like particles (some of it theoretical). Then those bits do slowly oxidize and return to nature.

The notion that plastic is forever is daft and broken.

That said, yes, by all means, keep your trash out of the ocean, get the Asians to clean up their act, and find ways to melt and reuse as plastic all that plastic “waste”. Any that’s not good enough quality to reform and reuse, is basically still “solid gasoline”. It burns nicely and can be mixed with other solid fuels in burners running on things like coal, wood, and trash. I’ve used plastic bottles to start fires in my fireplace and it works very well. Just put a couple over a bit of kindling to get it started, then logs, then another one or two on top to melt and drip into the stack as it gets going and light it all nicely.

BTW, plastic can be made from ANY carbon source and has been. It can be made (and has been made) from coal, oil, natural gas (most common in the USA now), trees, garbage, and corn. There is ZERO need to save oil for “petro”chemicals. They are more accurately called carbon polymer chemicals.

And how do you get Asia to clean up it’s act? Deluded Globalism favors them even in the short term. We so-called whites are millions. Asia is billions. China is building coal-fired electric plants like crazy. They will be producing more plastic for in-country consumption over time and they are not known for their green initiatives. Some of their appetite will be for U.S. coal. Japan is switching to coal for obvious reasons.

The Asians see green energy as a political ploy. In that, they live in Realville, not in a green delusional world of Western nations Then there is India. Good luck .

I was in Naples a few years ago and noticed that the harbor was being kept clean by a floating skimmer.
Almost like an aquatic Zamboni. The thing would cruise around and scour all the floating nasties off the surface. Judging from the results, it was a good idea. They still fish and harvest shellfish right in the harbor.

Generally true, BUT:
PVA plastic, Poly Vinyl Alcohol. It is water soluble.
It has its uses, particularly in hospitals. Patient laundry is gathered and bagged in PVA. Then the laundry room staff throw the whole thing into a washing machine, avoiding exposure to possibly contaminated items.

It would be nice to make the greenies buy their boutique bottled water in PVA bottles. Fill the bottle in the store at the time of purchase, and the bottle disappears before they get home. It’s Environmental.

Those of us who live rurally have septic systems and can benefit greatly from digester organisms packaged in PVA packets to flush down our toilets once in a while. I use “Flush It septic energizer” which contains 8 strains of bacteria to eliminate oils, soaps and other difficult wastes. No handling the bugs with PVA bags.

Really, it might be as simple as changing what we call landfills. Perhaps each one should be renamed as a MINE which is what it will probably be a few generations hence.
MINES are places where valuable elements and compounds exist in larger concentration than most other places and that are situated such that these valuable things can be transported.

Are they against plastic per se, or is this a smokescreen to go after oil, from which most plastic is made?

The NDP government of British Columbia relies on the Green party to support them in a minority government. They are against the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline because they want to prevent Alberta crude from making it to tidewater. That reason won’t fly because the federal government approved the pipeline. The excuse they are using is that they are worried about oil spills. That stands a chance of being heard by a court and at least delaying the project forever.

The reason the BC government is opposing the pipeline and what they say is the reason are different. I wonder if that’s also the case with the people opposing plastics.

The oppo in the U.S. vs the pipeline was anti-oil and not oil spills that might soak a few gophers.

The CAGW folks and anti-nuke folks have succeeded far beyond their expectations or my own. Just the mention of the word “nuclear” makes many folks cringe. Don’t waste your time telling them they got more radiation from their last visit to the dentist than anyone within miles of Three Mile Island.

Note the opening of this essay:
“April 22 was designated by the Earth Day Network as Earth Day 2018. This year’s Earth Day was dedicated to ending global plastic pollution. ”

Several years ago (7 +/- 3) I read that activists “networks” discuss and agree on the coming year’s issue.
Magazine editors ask for articles for their cover stories, and many other planning steps begin so that when the new season rolls around citizens of the developed countries are bombarded with photos, articles, and conferences about the selected “gloom & doom” thing.
A few years ago magazines seemed to show Pandas, another year Polar Bears, …, and now “plastic pollution.”

The small town near us has instituted a nickel fee for the plastic bags used at grocery store check out.
Those folks that get “food assist” coupons can ask for an exemption and will be given a paper bag, but not charged for it.
We use cardboard boxes, with handles. Works great.
Also, and this we find funny, we get a nickel off our bill for using the box.
All of this is about as useful as the California Proposition 65 Warning that came attached to the waterproof hiking boots I recently bought.
Do they think I am going to make boot-soup? [ref: ‘Stone Soup’]

City requires stores to end using plastic bags. As a result folks must now go out and buy plastic bags to hold their garbage. End result flimsy 1 use plastic bags are replaced by hefty garbage bags and plastic waste increases.

City bans plastic bags and requires everyone to use paper bags. Trees cut down by the millions. City responds by requiring composting and hands out plastic composers. Million upon millions of flies breed in composters and a million plastic composters end up in the landfill.

end result flimsy plastic bags replaced by substantial plastic composers in landfills at great cost to taxpayers. City council repots great success with program.

Alternate scenario: City bans plastic and paper grocery bags and requires reusable grocery bags available at the store ($3 ea) for those who didn’t happen to bring any with them. Money goes to municipality and Chinese manufacturer of very ornate bags containing green slogans. Bags usually last 2 or 3 trips to the store.

aus does that- theyre$1 ea or more made from ??plastic of some different sort..after a while especially if they see sunshine they disintegrate
which sounds ok
but?
the powder gets all over you and is easily inhaled and is a real irritant to the eyes;-/
microplastic dust all over the place, not sure how thats a good thing?

And here in crazy California, bags at the checkout counter cost 10 cents, and are a heavy-duty plastic that last many more than 2-3 uses. The funny part of this is that we, the people, voted to ban single-sue bags and require the 10-cent heavier-duty ones. Then some bright light figured out that the new bags didn’t cost the store 10 cents more than the old bags, and those veil capitalists would be making money on the change, so we passed an initiative to send the 10 cents to the state. *That makes it a tax, where I come from.) The stores now have to pay more for the new bags than the old bags, and don’t get even the difference in cost. The state pays nothing for the new bags, and gets the entire fee.

Land fill and Other Disposal-Translated:
Dumped into the ocean and tossed onto the side of the road.
THESE is a REAL environmental problems.
Elevate the level on these-drown out the ‘noise’ on the other.
Thanks

As with most Greenie “Problems”, give them an acceptable Solution (i.e. Biodegradable Plastics) and they completely reject the Solution. Proving once again, that the Green Movement is about “big Oil”, ‘CO2″, and other Political initiatives and NOT about the supposed “environmental” Complaint de jure!

Hi Rob : ” They want to destroy the petrochemical industry” you say !
UNFORTUNATELY…………………………..IT IS MUCH WORSE THAN THAT !!
“THEY” want to DESTROY ALL INDUSTRY ……especially in Capitalist WESTERN ECONOMIES.
If they can destroy all our industries ( THOSE THAT “WE” HAVEN’T ALREADY DESTROYED
OR EXPORTED TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES ……like China ! ) “THEY” have effectively destroyed “US”.
The places where CAPITALISM and FREE-ENTERPRISE FLOURISH are the ONLY places on EARTH
with a decent standard of living:,Education ( though THAT is increasingly becoming propaganda ! ) ,
Democracy , Free-Speech , the ability to PRACTISE any Religion ( or NOT practise any Religion ) ,
the ability to CHOOSE jobs and the ability to become PERSONALLY WEALTHY and PERSONALLY
OWN property , literally “the pursuit of happiness ” ARE ALL CONFINED TO WESTERNISED
CIVILISED COUNTRIES.
“ENVIRONMENTALISM” can ONLY succeed WHERE THERE IS PROSPERITY TO BE
ABLE TO AFFORD IT ! However , it has become ‘weaponised’ against us now !
BECAUSE “WE” ARE TOLERANT and Democratic “we” ALLOW this “GREEN FIFTH COLUMN”
the right to exist EVEN THOUGH “THEY” are trying VERY hard TO DESTROY US !
The ONLY WAY to counter their activities LAWFULLY is the VOTE FOR CONSERVATIVE
GOVERNMENTS and to DENY THEM A POLITICAL PLATFORM from which they can
operate. “THEIR” AIM is a Socialist Utopia and UNTIL THEY DESTROY OUR SOCIETY
they will not be able to establish it !
“THEIR” BLINDNESS TO THE TOTAL FAILURES IN THE RECENT PAST ( USSR ,
Cambodia ect….. ad infinitum ) OF DISASTROUS SOCIALISM does NOT deter them.
IDEOLOGY is NOT necessarily driven by common sense and misplaced altruism has
killed millions. “UTOPIA” is still the goal and “THEY” are relentless…..and in that sense
you have to admire their determination !
FOR EXAMPLE: Why hasn’t the MEDIA championed the EXTRACTION OF OIL FROM
TAR SANDS as “Fantastically successful environmental remediation…….forest and
wildlife now flourish where only deadly swamps existed previously ! ”
whereas they condemned a relatively MINOR OIL SPILL ( by comparison )
in the GULF OF MEXICO when an oil-well blew-out. ????????
“WE” NEED BETTER MEDIA & BETTER HEAD-LINES !
IT MEANS THAT “WE” NEED TO BECOME MORE SUPPORTIVE OF OUR
INDUSTRIES AND OUR FREEDOMS , get off our individual butts , AND
BECOME ACTIVISTS PROMOTING OUR OWN LIFESTYLES AND
MAKING SURE THAT OUR LEGISLATORS “GET IT RIGHT”
IF “WE” WANT A BETTER FUTURE !

What they want is to deny cheap energy to the masses. It makes us independent and not likely to need anything at all from them. They have seen to it that we don’t have nuclear reactors. They did not plan on the shale oil revolution. Today gasoline locally is $2.65 a gallon. When I was a teenager in the late 50’s, gas in Texas was under 50 cents. Given inflation it is cheaper today with all the gas taxes than it was then. The problem is wages have not kept up with inflation.

Most plastics entering and floating in the oceans are being consumed by microbes — this has been known for years but is seldom mentioned — similar to the way that oil spill eating microbes are omitted from stories about oil spills. Oceanic plastics naturally breakdown into smaller and smaller pieces and eventually are entirely consumed by microbes….I have written about this several times here at WUWT.

That said, plastics should be recycled wherever possible — municipalities and local governments should insist and see that it is actually done.

The ubiquitous one-use plastic shopping bags should be required to be made of environmentally degradable materials that break down rapidly after exposure to sun and water. Their actual intended lifespan in use is about six hours — long enough to get the groceries home. Once they hit the trash stream or the environment, they should disintegrate within a week or so.

All of us should take care with our trash — this is a Kindergarten Rule — pick up after yourself — Don’t Leave a Mess for Others.

Using foreign aid funds to help poorer nations take out the trash will improve the plastic pollution problem and improve public health in those nations — a Win-Win.

Many grocery store plastic bags ARE immediately recycled into trash bag liners themselves.
Not all certainly, but many millions every day. The improvements in convenience, cleanliness, bug and infection reduction, hygiene, and just plain comfort-of-life are immense.

Unpopular to the enviro’s of course for that very reason: Convenience, ease of use, comfort, and cleanliness are “good things” and therefore “cannot be tolerated” nor made cheaper.

@Jeff,
Yeah, I find the same thing here in VT.
It seems that the lower elevations get most of the windblown debris.
Roadside debris are mostly in the form of aluminum beer cans, despite a $0.05 deposit.
There are no fast food within a 20 mile radius so we see little foam, except for the occasional Dunkins/Starbucks from the flatlanders.
May have put a grandson through college based on that goldmine…

Reallyskeptical – what state do you live in? I live Northeast of Reno, NV. Lots of wind. don’t see any plastic bags – not a one. Folks here reuse them for trash bags. I would not like to see them disintegrate after a week.
In Orange County, where I lived before, people re-purposed them for doggie doo pickup.
Are you sure you’re not just projecting? A lot of city folk think they know the open wilds of the west, and make all kinds of silly laws that don’t pertain. I can’t help but suspect you’re from the big city, and have never been more than two blocks from a street light.

Banning the use of plastic would create many worse problems.
Today, nearly all plumbing piping in residential housing is plastic, replacing the copper, iron, galvanized, lead that was used previously. This reduces the cost and reduces the use of toxic or scarce materials. It reduces the CO2 emitted from welding gas and from the lower weight of transport. It is also faster and easier to install, further reducing cost. Once installed it is much less subject to deterioration or damage from frost. The three common plastics for this application are PEX, ABS, and PVC.
This is just one of the many critical uses of plastic, which have little negative environmental impact.
It is only single-use plastic products that can be a problem.Styrofoam plates and cups easily break down into small pellets, that can actually be a favorable soil amendment but has no place in the ocean. Packaging is a problem every place but the landfill.
Bottles, whether plastic or glass can easily be controlled with a deposit/refund program.

I have started picking up plastic bottles that litterbugs have thrown away and putting them into recycling bins. I also retrieve these bottles fron general waste bins in the street. I get some funny looks but I don’t care.

in enlightened states in aus those containers inc the waxed milk ones earn you 10c each for collection n recycling
south aus does this for decades the roadsides are clean of glass n plastic litter mostly
driving to Victoria i was amazed at the broken bottles of road and roadsides as well as all the plastic waste thrown from cars.
huge difference
poor people travel the roadsides on pushbikes and collect waste to earn money
win win all round

There is a beach of colored weathered glass, in Russia.
Glass does sink and is very inert, but the idea of banning plastic is insultingly stupid.
Plastics, cheap energy, indoor plumbing and antibiotics are among the best things we have done.
Greens, in their misanthropic obsessions, seem to hate most if not all if those advances.

Maybe a bit OT, but I saw a story a couple of days ago about all the plastic trash in the ocean (The Pacific?) being the size of Texas. I’ve only ever seen stories the plastic “islands” in the oceans.
It would seem that if they are really that big a satellite photo or two would be available?

Not off topic at all. The so called ‘garbage gyre’ in the mid pacific is fantasy. I’ve seen many pictures purportedly taken from ships traversing the ‘center’ of the area and no trash at all is visible. Oceanographic research can only collect amounts large enough to even test by towing fine seine nets for several hours.
And the ‘horror stories ‘ of small plastic particles [even tough plastics break down to smaller and smaller pieces] so small that “fish eat them” I’ve seen NO research which shows these very small particles cause anything at all when ingested by marine life and, since the plastics involved are quite inert there is not even a theoretical reason for assuming damage of any kind. It goes in one end and comes out the other unchanged – but even smaller.

Humans produce almost 300 million tons of plastic each year. Most of this ends up in landfills or waste pits, but a 1970s National Academy of Sciences study estimated that 0.1% of all plastic washes into the oceans from land, carried by rivers, floods, or storms, or dumped by maritime vessels.
Some of this material becomes trapped in Arctic ice and some, landing on beaches, can even turn into rocks made of plastic. But the vast majority should still be floating out there in the sea, trapped in midocean gyres—large eddies in the center of oceans, like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

To figure out how much refuse is floating in those garbage patches, four ships of the Malaspina expedition, a global research project studying the oceans, fished for plastic across all five major ocean gyres in 2010 and 2011.
After months of trailing fine mesh nets around the world, the vessels came up light—by a lot.
Instead of the millions of tons scientists had expected, the researchers calculated the global load of ocean plastic to be about only 40,000 tons at the most, the researchers report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“We can’t account for 99% of the plastic that we have in the ocean,” says Duarte, the team’s leader.

Gunga, The news media will do a bait and switch. They will describe all the plastic that is in the Pacific with islands of it floating around. Then a picture may be presented. It will not be a picture of an island of plastic in the Pacific, but of a harbor or lake that the local population of a third world country has used a dump. I personally such a pile in Vietnam. Once you get out in the country side of Vietnam you discover that the old practices are still practiced and many garbage dumps are along the shore of a lake. The reason, it is self flushing. Get some hard rain and the river rises and the garbage is flushed away. That practice is ending, but in a lot of third world countries it is still very prevalent.

A lot of the Greens are just interested in virtue signaling, an exercise in hypocrisy and self-righteousness.
A smaller fraction want the rest of us forced back into a pre-industrial lifestyle, and wish for a 90% die-off.

There are an estimated 5 trillion pieces of plastic in the worlds oceans and we all have plastic floating in our bloodstreams. Whether all this is a potential carcinogenic nightmare or not, only medical science could possibly answer. However with their 2 sigma statistical standard, I dont have much confidence of any of their answers.

Cancer rates have been falling in the US since 1992. That should be a big clue. Our ability to detect minute particles and small amounts of radiation is primarily due to our ability to detect quantities too small to affect anything.

One would think that taking petroleum that humans have an insatiable need to convert to CO2 and instead converting it into a permanently inert solid would be every self-identified ‘environmentalist’s fondest dream.

This study appears to be highly hypothetical in nature. Less than 50% of waste is going to land fills. Also, scientific land fills are very few and thus soil and groundwater contamination is high. Large part is burnt, some goes into rainwater drains, lakes, seawater [coastal cities], etc.

I don’t know how much more of a recycling thing you can do than to put the contents of the litter box into a thin plastic grocery bag. Cat litter is a specialized clay that absorbs liquids quickly, and plastic will keep it dry until it gets to the landfill. And the landfill will be full of methane from all those deposits of used cat litter and fish bones and candy wrappers, so that at some point, it can be mined for methane for use by the gas company.
The only issue I have with my use of plastic bags for cat litter is that some day, some archaeologist doing an exploratory dig on what he thinks is a midden kitchen will come across those bags of used cat litter, and wonder why, if we were all so civilized, we didn’t have flush toilets.

I do remember standing with the sewer plant operator, watching a stream of floating plastic tampon applicators coming off the skimmers and him remarking that synchronous estrus is observable in the sewage stream. (Odd dudes, sewage plant operators.)

Back in the day refuse was burned. Now we have better particulate filters, incinerators could liberate us of the trash and use the energy liberated to make steam and drive a turbine. Once we get past the current CO2 scam it will all become clear – roading Monckton’s recent paper the day is not far off.

Jordan Peterson has become a hero to many including myself. He talks about personal responsibility and personal action. He describes the efforts of the social justice warriors as minimal effortless preening. It does not take a lot of personal effort to paint a sign or in a lot of cases just pick up a pre-made sign and show up at events and shout. To claim that we should do away plastics is easy, to actually do it takes personal responsibility and action. Peterson says to young people find a problem then go about fixing it. The linked video is about a person that Peterson uses as an example of someone that did just that. This is what environmentalism should be about. Boyan Slat went scuba diving and saw a problem, too much plastic. He set about to solve the problem.

“Boyan Slat went scuba diving and saw a problem, too much plastic. He set about to solve the problem.”

He should be admired for his concern and resolve to solve a problem. But I think he would be more likely to be successful if he’d thought more initially about where the plastic in the ocean comes from.

It seems to the best solution lies in stopping plastic from getting into the ocean in the first place. And recent research points to only a relatively small number of rivers as the source of a large portion of ocean plastics, as has been discussed below:

I have yet to see any convincing evidence that plastics are generally any worse than other long-lasting materials in the environment such as cellulose from trees and plants or inorganic compounds that are found in sand, silt, or mud.

Plastics may offend the human eye, but there is no special chemical property that makes them inherently harmful. That’s why they are so widely used as food containers. It is also well within our abilities to make plastics that degrade faster, if we wish. But banning something is always the first resort of strident environmentalists, especially if it can be associated with the petroleum industry. Once again, the defenders of industry seem to have gone AWOL.

I have to take exception with the idea that plastic is made from refining waste.
Most plastic is produced from ethylene and propylene which are best made from petroleum/natural gas or light naphta. It is possible to crack also the residual fractions, but it takes much more work.

Next year, it will be the population bomb, again, and the green blight, which includes the environmental impact of windmills and photovoltaic panels… Scratch the second. They can still squeeze life from the organic black blob.

If they emphasize the population bomb again, I hope a group of dedicated green doctors set up a tent, offer free vasectomies to the male attendees, and encourage the women to shame the men into having them. Let them lead the way to Earth’s salvation!

A use for plastic waste in the UK is being developed by some entrepreneurs who convert the waste into plastic pellets which are incorporated with bitumen and roadstone to make a longer lasting road surface. It also has use in repairing potholes when the degree of resilience provided by the plastic helps prevent the repair being broken up by the next heavy lorry driving over it.

Very sensible. Of course many useful road ingredients are already made from end-products of the petroleum industry, but greens don’t like to admit it to themselves. They still think we could manage with wooden wheels moving in a rut defined by cobblestones à la ancient Pompei.

An article this week in the Daily Telegraph stated that scientists were worried that the melting Arctic ice would release massive amounts of plastic waste held in the ice.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong but how did the plastic end up in ice that is supposed to NOT have formed because of global warming which allegedly has all occurred since plastics were first developed on a large scale !
Perhaps our ancient ancestors did know a trick or two after all.

My story about enforced recycling comes, naturally, from UK agriculture.
Livestock farming.
Uses extensive amounts of fencing materials and also plastic.
Fencing to keep the animals where they’re supposed to be and black plastic sheeting enabled the production of silage. Both in large heaps (clamps) and big bales.
Fences require typically wooden stakes/posts/rails.
(The prices of which have easily quadrupled in the last 5 years since everyone started burning wood to Save The Planet but that’s another story)

But anyway, last time I bought any posts/stakes/rails, a plain wooden rail of 4″ by 1″ and 12′ long came in at about £3 ea.
At same time, waste management rules were going crazy, especially regarding the old black plastic.
‘Entrepreneurs’ appeared and volunteered to remove the stuff from farms. (Not for long did the removal service last, within 2 years the farmer had to take it to them)
And it had to be near spotlessly clean
And, get this, they charged money – about £10 per tonne as I recall.
But as per usual, the farmer was caught by the short & curlies and had to cough up. Rules stated that farms could only store the used plastic for 12 months or less.

OK, back to the fence posts.
The ‘entrepreneurs’ processed the plastic into various things, one of their products being posts/stakes/rails to be used for fencing.
The posts were the most dangerous things ever invented. Hit them with a mechanised post-driver and they bent – twanged really. If you were standing beside it to hold it straight upright/vertical you could suffer a broken arm, bruised ribs or generally get your face smashed in.
Then it didn’t go into the ground and if you ever did get it into the dirt, ’twas impossible to hammer nails into them.

To add insult to very real injury, you might want one of the plastic rails – you’d be charged £34 (5 yrs ago) for the recycled plastic equivalent of the £3 wooden rail.
And it was made from plastic that you had paid them to take away.

They are almost as bad as lawyers. They create jobs & work for themselves, charge as much as they imagine they deserve (and more) and then destroy you financially and personally (dig up my dead brother and ask him if you don’t believe me) if you don’t pay.

Are you *really* sure you know how the GHGE works and can explain it coherently to your own children.
If not, you are in appeasement with these people and it will all go so badly wrong you cannot imagine the horrors.
Need I remind that there is precedent.

Peta of Newark;
You remind of the days when the Road authorities decided to use white recycled plastic marker posts that act as markers to define the edges of numerous secondary roads and highways here in Australia .
The white plastic marker posts at about a 100 metres intervals were very flexible and when knocked down promptly stood up again.
Of course such a situation was a sure fire attractant for all the local road hoons who providing they had a “bull” bar [ deflects stray kangaroos and etc when at speed ] on the front of thier utes, used to belt down the line of white plastic posts at speed yielding a very satisfactory “whhack” every few seconds each time they hit the next post in line.
The cost in broken plastic marker posts was a bit excessive so some smarter than normal public servant in the road authority’s offices decreed that a white painted lump of railway iron, identical in appearance to the white plastic marker posts, be used as a replacement for a white plastic post every so many hundreds of metres.
It only took a dozen or so completely destroyed utes to bring the whole of the white marker whacking to a complete halt.

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was asked about the reliability of the figure and said: “The 8.5 billion figure is a widely-quoted figure based on research by independent group Eunomia.”

The same researchers have done further research for the World Wildlife Fund, which estimated that 42 billion straws a year were being used a year in the UK – that’s 640 per person.

That figure was based on an estimate for total use (not just fast food outlets) from a market research company that said 82 thousand tonnes of plastic straws were used in the 28 countries of the EU.

Eunomia then divided based on the sizes of the economies of each country (measured by GDP) to get to 15,700 tonnes for the UK and work that out at 0.4 grams per straw.

I’m not convinced that
a these figures make sense, I don’t think anyone in my family uses 2 plastic straws per day averaged over a year.

and
b If the numbers are correct then using an alternative paper? Is any better for the environment. Plastic is strong and impermeable so children can’t easily chew the end flat nor does it become saturated and collapse, both of which happens to paper based straws increasing the numbers used.

c. Every day there are over a dozen 40ft wagons on UK roads moving plastic straws.

As far as straws are concerned then a total ban no matter what material is the only way to go. Although the amount of drink spilled by children will greatly increase in those circumstances.

In normal science, when the results of your calculations make no sense whatsoever, the first step is to review your math, your initial data and your assumptions.
In environmental “science”, the more ludicrous your numbers, the more likely you are to attract a research grant, so the last thing you want to do is double check yourself.

All organic waste, from food to plastics etc could go through the Fischer–Tropsch process, which is a set of chemical reactions that changes a mixture of carbon monoxide gas and hydrogen gas into liquid hydrocarbons (like gasoline or kerosene). This offers complete recycling back to feedstock to begin the cycle again.

Ordinary incineration is unacceptable to greenies because it produces some air pollution. However, a “fusion torch” operating at 30,000 degrees eliminates nearly all air pollution and can capture much of the heat it generates to power its own operation. It was described in the book, Prescription for the Planet and is being pilot-tested in Russia. There are several U.S. makers of the torch for that purpose. General descriptions of the fusion torch can be found by googling for the term. My search result page is here:https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=fusion+torch&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Gang Green are living proof that stupid is incurable.
I liken these people to the infection with cause.
You cannot reason with these zealots anymore than you can reason with gaseous gangrene.
We,collectively, have provided them with everything,yet they seek to destroy us.
Amputation is not an unreasonable solution to such.

They “know all”, yet admit to ignorance of maths,science and consequence.
Tolerance of their idiocy has not worked,our tolerance of their anti-human bigotry has resulted in todays crazy political situation.
Voting crazy people to positions of authority does not wake them up.
Being in positions of responsibility does not force fools or bandits to become responsible.

Lost in a world of virtue signalling and self congratulation, these paragons of virtue are blind to responsibility, personal responsibility only applies to their critics.

The famous quote, attribution temporarily forgotten,” The modern environmental activist will do anything to save the environment, absolutely anything.Anything that is, except get an education and study the sciences”.Anything except learn enough to understand what the “environment” might be.
When challenged far too many are copies of Dr Fruit Fly of Canada, not even aware of the data underlying their claims.

As to fabrics for the Green warriors. Hemp and flax make very unpleasant itchy fabrics and would be just the thing for the environmentalists. Hair shirts for penitence and . in the old days, sackcloth and ashes for mourning. it would send a message to all these oil using villains and signal virtue at the cost of comfort. Just up their street. Someone could make a fortune from Greenpeace if it become the mandatory get up for protests.

Safeway sells, for 25 cents, heavy-duty plastic shopping bags that have a high capacity and can be brought back to the store for repeated baggings. I’ve done so for years. Compared to cloth bags, they are cheaper, more capacious, more compressable when empty, easier to get ahold of their handles, and lower-maintenance (no need to put them in a washing machine because their non-absorbance keeps fluids from being an infection threat or a material-degrader).

“The researchers have also calculated that the ten river systems with the highest plastic loads ( eight of them are in Asia and two in Africa ) – areas in which hundreds of millions of people live, in some cases – are responsible for around 90 percent of the global input of plastic into the sea. ”

‘ Ocean originates in Europe and the US, where waste disposal is well-controlled. An estimated 82 percent originates in Asia and another 16 percent from the rest of the world.’

Thats my experience travelling around Asia, Africa. I was in Papua New Guinea last year and the amount of rubbish in the rivers was eye watering. I suspect that the poor sods living in poverty the environment would be the least of their problems.

Reducing plastic use is a good thing, especially regarding landfills. It costs a lot of tax dollars to build and maintain landfills. Why should we generate huge amounts of plastics that we don’t really need? It drives up the cost of living for everyone, and creates trash that we have to pay to store in landfills. Use what is necessary, and minimize what isn’t.

Conservation and frugal use of our resources is smart and ecoomical. Let’s not get pushed off of that position by a reaction to environmentalist rhetoric.